Oh, Google. You know just how to get our attention. If you're not planting giant statues on your front lawn, you're giving your guests tasty treats with a wink. At Google's theme park MWC booth, the company has set up bowls of jelly beans that are, according to sources close to the matter, "delicious." What we're really after, though, is details on Google's next OS version of the same name. Could this mean we're going to hear about it?

As far as rumors go, a bowl of candy is pretty low on the list of sources we tend to get our stories from. That being said, Eric Schmidt is set to give a keynote tomorrow at 18:00 CET (noon EST, 9am PST). Perhaps Google isn't done with its surprises just yet. So far all the best news from MWC has come from Google's partners, not Google themselves.

Suffice to say, it's probably best that you stick around for the keynote tomorrow. Don't worry, your work can wait.

Eric is a snarky technophile with a taste for the unusual. When he's not obsessing about Android, you can usually find him obsessing about movies, psychology, or the perfect energy drink. Eric weaves his own special blend of snark, satire, and comedy into all his articles.

Comments

Google is a confirmed troll, if that's what you mean. The name of the next OS isn't, yet...

http://www.twitter.com/shakerya Aash

They might as well have stuck in a :P next to the jelly beans.

Odin

ICS hasn't even gotten to more than 10% of handsets or any other device for that matter. The only devices to have it this far is the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S GSM and the Asus Transformer. Now we are already moving on to Jelly Bean? Has Google forgotten about all the others who crave their much desired OS version? I have a Nexus S 4G and those of us who own one are still looking for an answer on when we might see the update. The leak is great and all, but what of the people who prefer not to root? In my perspective this sucks. It makes no sense to start talking about a new OS version when the previous one has yet to reach its potential. What the hell is going on Google?

Sam

"What the hell is going on Carriers"

FTFY

Sam

"What the hell is going on Carriers and OEM's"

FT 'FTFY' FY ;)

Jason

"What the hell is going on, carriers and OEMs?"

GFTFTFTFYFYFY

N’O

Uh?

So there is a rumor going on about the name of Android 5, and Google decided to troll us and have a little fun with it (as Google always does; if you don't know - you must have never *felt lucky*).

How is that going to prejudice the current OS again?

Marco

Should we stop progress just so your phone catches up? Can you hear yourself? Seems to me that you need an iPhone with their yearly "updates"
My GSII doesn't have ICS yet and you don't see me throwing a tantrum

calvin

i am, i am, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII....... ammmmmmm......

j/k

Epic touch 4ever! (or until gsIII come out)

kstagg

I think 5% is a stretch to be honest, but I agree with you whole-heartedly. I want to hear more about how they plan to get the carriers in sync w/each other.

Hell, I'd be happy to just to see the android chrome browser at this point.

Kevin

As a Motorola Photon user and android fan - I can tell you what Sergei et al will say...

We are excited to bring you news of Android Ice Cream Sandwich!

This Operating System will end what some have called "fragmentation" but Eric and ourselves prefer to call "differentiation". Hey "to-may-to", "to-mah-to", amiright?

Anyway, if you agree to terminate your currently contracts with your providers and upgrade to a phone with ICS - you will be able to experience all the wonders of this fantastic new Operating System.

Yes, I sympathize that your current phone may only be 6 months old and you're not eligible for an upgrade for another 18 months at the earliest without penalty. Even if your phone is on the list of phones to get ICS down the line - God only knows when that time will come, and if that is a moving marker on that calendar, right?

Look, I know we are promoting Jelly Bean at the MWC right now (see jelly bean bowls at nearest exits to you). It may look like we are putting the cart before the horse and not concentrating about getting everyone on ICS before announcing the next OS.

But hey - who you going to go to? Apple? Who else is there - nobod.. Oh shit.

...

Windows 8. It's coming. And all this fragmentation horseshit is why my next phone will be a Windows phone and synced with Windows 8.

Baris Bicer

If that's the case you're not allowed to call yourself an Android fan anymore. :P

Kevin

Oh, c'mon. It's true. I mean - why in the hell are they promoting JellyBean now instead of pushing as many people they can to ICS?

Is the fragmentation, excuse me -"differentiation" going to stop? Look at my posts on twitter @kstagg. I'm a huge android fan - but that big announcement that ICS would stop the fragmentation was a crock.

They should show this 7" tablet which is coming out 2Q of 2012. They should show us a preview of their idea of this media center that they have been working on. They have loads of stuff they can show us, as well as working with other OEMs. They do NOT need to show us what their next OS is.

They should release 1 OS a year. At least then no one will feel as though their phones are antiquated a mere months after they have purchased them, even though they are solid phones.

As much as I hate to admit it - Mac (hurl) and Microsoft drew a line in the sand to the OEMs that said that they could not modify the OS in any way. So any updates are across the board, across every carrier with no problem.

Android - well, do I really have to explain that?

Jason

"...why in the hell are they promoting JellyBean now instead of pushing as many people they can to ICS?"

Because pushing people to ICS not Google's job. Google just maintains and updates the OS itself. It's up to the OEMs to get those updates on their phones.

punit

calm down, it's just a teaser
it might not even launch till the end of the year

Kevin

LOL - do I seem stressed? My bad. Sorry.

punit

And i see you have written that "why in the hell are they promoting JellyBean now"
do take a moment to consider that this might just be Google's way of messing with our heads. It is not, strictly speaking, a promotion of the upcoming platform.

Ben

Yeah! See I blame Google for something they have no control over too. That is why I support Research In Motion.

The boys over at RIM really know what the people want. With Android emulation in BB10 this will be a home run.

The boys over at RIM have really been knocking it out of the park over the last two years. What's that you say, they recently fired two CEOs... at the same time?

I saw this one commercial about these aspiring (read failed) hip hop stars who use BlackBerry and they seem so cool. They really get what I need.

As a matter of fact I am getting in my car to go buy a PlayBook right now. (I find it strange that they named their tablet the PlayBook and then changed their slogan to "I need tools not toys")

#BeBold

http://codytoombs.wordpress.com Cody Toombs

Kevin, who do you work for? Your FUD is smelling to high heavens. You're pulling out old and sleepy complaints that even most Apple Fanboys have started to give up on.

Jellybean is not going to be Android 5.0. Who is dumb enough to think the 4.x line is actually going to stop at 4.0.4??? Not a single major version of Android ended in .0. Jellybean will be v4.1, and based on past examples and already existing rumor, it will only include a couple of smaller features and bug fixes (and probably some new APIs). ICS has been announced and is coming out to almost any device that people expected it to, but impatience makes it feel like it's taking forever. The problems with Android come from the OEMs and carriers.

Quick update, if you've been following the situation with Windows Phone 7, there's a lot of Samsung customers who are absolutely furious that at least one model of phone is a few updates behind, something that Microsoft said would/could NEVER happen. Then of course, there's Apple, never forget that each year they release a new version of the OS that for purely profit-seeking reasons will not include some of the latest features.

Don't get me wrong, we don't want you here, but we don't want you scaring off people with your BS. Feel free to go away ;)

kstagg

Wow. No dissension allowed. Didnt realize you were the offspring of Kim Jung Il. Ol well...
As stated before, I have a MotorolaPhoton w/Tegra 2 and

kstagg

...1GB RAM. Before that I had the EVO4G. I attended the first Android BBQ down in Austin over a year ago. Yes, like many others I have rooted my phone (a chimp can do it). I think I know a little about android and can speak on it. So yeah, I want to hear Google's plans for making ICS more universal across the first CURRENT crop of phones. If nothing changes, I'm probably going to switch OS. That is my opinion, not that of a "troll". I'm staying, so kiss my ass and have a spectacular evening.

http://codytoombs.wordpress.com Cody Toombs

So you're posting under two different names? Strange...

It's clear you misunderstand two things very clearly...

One, you obviously know nothing about Kim Jong-Il to have made that comparison (even a regular Daily Show viewer would know you've missed the point). I will point out that it's a classic troll move to compare somebody you disagree with to somebody you hate, similar to the way FOX "News" pundits often refer to Obama as Hitler; you diminish yourself by doing so.

Two, you're deeply misrepresenting what ICS was intended to do. Google did not claim ICS would end fragmentation of OS versions as it would be a unification of the API. More to the point, they were getting rid of the API incompatibilities between Honeycomb and Gingerbread. They also made the claim that they would fix some of the incompatibilities caused by the custom skins, which any Android developer here can tell you is true (albeit incomplete).

If you're not happy with Android, why are you spending so much effort trying to convince people here? You don't need to convince us that you want to change phones...trust me when I say, we believe you ;) I'm fairly certain you've got a carrier store nearby that would be happy to sell you one of the alternatives if you're so displeased with Android.

Kevin

I would have posted this under your other posts like the others, but it wouldn't allow me to reply to it directly. How strange.

Not sure how you are able to do that to where you can not allow a reply to a comment. Maybe the forum has a checkbox that I missed when you post something? I don't know. Perhaps you are an admin here? If so, talk to Buckner. He can vouch for me. He founded this site.

As much as I appreciate the humor of the Daily Show, unlike you I get my world news from, you know, real news sources by reading the paper and sites like CNN.com. The reference to Kim Il Jung was in his suppression of free speech, kind of what you are doing here. Apparently I don't agree with your opinion, much to your dismay. How sad for you.

Actually I voted for Obama and I'm a Republican, or at least was, - but that's a whole different argument, so PLEASE, let's not go there. This current crop of losers doesn't help either.

Perhaps my interpretation of ICS was in error. I'll give you that. It is not so much a unification of the phones so much as a unification of the tablets and phones in being able to use the same OS - ICS.

Maybe I did "jump the gun" by looking to abandon ship. Perhaps I'm pissed that I have another year and a half before I can upgrade w/o penalty and it will be 3Q before my phone can get ICS.

Until then - let's just not attack folks because they have a difference of opinion. If people weren't displeased with the original MS Mobile/Blackberry, we wouldn't have Android or iOS.

Kevin Stagg
@kstagg

http://codytoombs.wordpress.com Cody Toombs

The 'reply' issue has nothing to do with me, it's an issue with how this site handles comments. No replies to anything 4 levels deep. It makes sense from a web design perspective (you don't want to blow out the page or have the comments shrunk down to 20px wide), though I've seen it solved pretty gracefully on some other sites.

With all due respect, you're pulling out a lot of strawman arguments. I never said or even distantly implied I only got news from the Daily Show, I didn't suppress your speech (by the by, you're still spelling Kim Jong-il wrong) and I didn't question your politics. None of these things made sense to bring into the discussion in the first place.

Regarding the on-topic stuff...I'm pretty sure I know what you'd like to see, Google cracking the whip on any dimwitted OEM that is dragging updates out as far as 9 months after the current version. I suspect a LOT of people (myself included) are with you on the frustration of watching Google use Open Source as an excuse to not ride their OEM partners to do what they promised. I'll put money that many of us would even like to get violent towards the carriers because they frequently cause as much or more of the problems than anybody. Believe me, we feel ya' pain ;)

Kevin

Ok - Cody. Come over here man. Big hug. We're cool now.

Know what would be an awesome idea? A carrier offering a 1-year option for a contract to keep up with mobile technology instead of just 2-years.

THAT would be epic and would solve a lot of these problems with fragmentation. People would be able to upgrade a lot faster and getting phones with the hottest hardware. They would also be able to get the latest OS on their phones a lot quicker as well.

As far as people jumping ship to another carrier? Who would want to leave a carrier that allows that? If all the other carriers followed suit - then we all win, right?

Aux

I'm usually not a big fan of jelly beans, but this is giving me a craving for them.

http://www.focuszonedevelopment.com Aaron

I really hope there's a trollface imprinted on the bottom of the bowl.

rrjp

From the devs standpoint, ICS has been done for a while now. What do you expect them to do, go on vacation for a few months until all phones are upgraded to ICS?

Kevin

I expect them to bust their ass in making sure that the carriers get in line and if that doesn't work then they need to make a vanilla build and make everyone else tow their line - like MS and Mac do.

GergS

Through what mechanism? It's open-source.

Merk

If you want access to our CLOSED SOURCE products by default ( Maps, Market, etc) then you must use stock.
Pretty much what they did to Steve Kondik with CyanagenMod

Eric

Uhh, those are two totally different teams. Coders code, they have developer and carrier relations teams for the rest, or they should.

Glenn Tan

Sometimes, it's also the selfish oems and carriers who want to promote their new products before upgrading older phone so that their sales wouldn't be hurt. So greed of oems and carriers are at fault here, and the only way is to get a Nexus and feel smug that you have the latest version running, or flash a rom.

http://nelsdzyre.com Nels

Well I'm all in for the Jelly Bean news it just that..even CM9 project not officially done yet. LoL.

GergS

I'm guessing Jelly Bean will be 4.1, and that it won't be nearly as much work to upgrade to compared to 2.3 -> 4.0.

Eric

That's my guess. 4.1 will be a refinement OS version of ICS. Maybe they'll even fix the menu button. That's the biggest complaint I hear from GNex users. Fortunately, I still have my hardware menu button.

ItsMillerTime

I agree with focusing more on getting people current, i.e. on ICS. Talking about great new versions while people can't get the current great version just pisses people off and gives Apple an advantage. What's so great about open source if only the devs get to enjoy it? Google needs to work on some way to balance this without being too restrictive. They're big smart guys/people; they can figure this out.

Eric

This happens every year at this time. Last year, at MWC and I/O, they mentioned ICS stuff, and people got pissed they weren't on Gingerbread. Calm down people, it's coming.

Merk

...so long as you buy a new phone every time

Dion

This is the technology age; your product is out-dated in 6 months. Get over it. No, apple doesn't fragment its OS; it prefers to release a new phone with very few new features instead. Then it updates the old phones a little, but leaves out the major features so that you'll go out and buy a new iphone without contract pricing.
Why does everyone act like this is a new scenario? It's been going on for the past decade. Just because it's software doesn't make it any different.

http://androidpolice.com GAL O

Yes it does its very diffrent

carnegie0107

Ugh. People... this is open-source software, given away for free. Google is doing what they can to innovate as much as they can, and give us the best OS possible. If you're mad that your phone is still on 2.1, complain to your OEM and carrier... Google can't do anything to make them update.

Besides, I don't understand this whole argument about not getting the latest update instantly... your phone doesn't suddenly become worse than it was just because a new, better version of the OS comes out. Android 2.3 is still a very good mobile OS, and still soundly stomps iOS 5 and WinPhone 7. Android 4.0 is fantastic, and we would all be raving about it for the next year... except now there's this rumored Jelly Bean, so now 4.0 must suck? lol...

carnegie0107

But, enough arguing. Google can solve the fragmentation issue instantly with two words:

Virtual machine.

Yup. Build a VM into the OS for which OEMs will write hardware-specific drivers. GOOG can update the OS against the virtual machine, and OEMs can slap it on their device in no time flat. Better yet, with this framework in place, Google could even provide OTA updates directly to pure, Google-experience devices (as opposed to Sense, TouchWiz, Blur, etc., as those custom skins will have to be updated for the new version each time).

With ICS, manufacturer skins are becoming less wanted, and rumor has it future versions of Android will always include all the theme resources for both the custom skin, and stock, vanilla Android (for app compatibility reasons). If this is the case, then this most likely (not definitely, but likely) means that custom skins will not only be less extreme, but much more easily ported in the future. This, THIS is the path I want to see Google take with Android.

That and a unified OS across not just phones and tablets, but PCs and Google TV as well... but that's a different speech.